The Guesthouse on the Green Series Box Set 2 Page 11

  She’d been sitting in Bewley’s with Mammy and her sisters yesterday afternoon with a well-earned cup of tea and sticky bun in front of her—they’d all opted for sticky buns needing the sugar hit after the Christmas photo debacle. She needed sustenance too for braving the shops if she was going to finish her shopping. The air in the popular café was thick with the scent of brewing coffee and that peculiar easy-going joviality that the winding down into the festive season brought. Mammy kept opening the cardboard wallet for another look at the photo, saying that it was growing on her. Roisin suspected that was only because it was ever such a nice one of herself. She’d reached across the table to brave another glance, then wished she hadn’t. The state of her. The state of them all. She couldn’t be meeting Shay with a head of hair on her like that. Moira kept humming November Rain and she was going to put the boot in under the table if she wasn’t careful. There was nothing else for it, she’d have to see if Jenny could tidy her up before tomorrow night and, rummaging around in her handbag to retrieve her mobile, she looked up her old hairdressing pal’s number.

  Her friend’s harried voice answered a few rings later. ‘It’s nice to hear from you Roisin and I’m sorry your split-ends have gotten so bad, but I’m very busy, so I am. There’s the twins and we’ve Eoin’s mam and da arriving the day after tomorrow and the house is in a state, and you know what that witch of a woman is like when it comes to inspecting my skirting boards for dust,’ Jenny had garbled upon hearing Roisin’s request.

  Roisin held her mobile away from her ear grimacing as an ear-piercing and ongoing squealing sounded in the background. She’d forgotten what the terrible twos were like and Jenny had a double dose going on.

  ‘Don’t be playing fire engines when Mammy’s on the phone,’ Jenny chided. ‘Oscar loves making the siren noise so he does, and it’s doing my head in. Jaysus now Ophelia is after being an ambulance coming to the scene. Hang on a sec would ya and I’ll go in the toilet. It’s the only room with a lock where I can get some peace.’

  Roisin busied herself with her bun waiting for Jenny to come back on the line and when she did her voice was echoey. She hoped she wouldn’t hear any other sounds while they chatted. ‘As I was saying, Rosi, I’m very busy. How long are you back for because I might be able to fit you in come the new year? How does that sound, we could have a good catch up then too?’

  Roisin picked up a clump of hair and eyed the ends. She wouldn’t be fobbed off, not when it was imperative she look her best. She inspected her nails. Would she have time to get them done? No probably not. She’d ask Moira, she was good at manicures and Aisling would let her borrow a pair of her heels and give her some wardrobe advice. All of that was a waste of time though if her crowning glory made her look like she should be playing bass in a hard rock band. She really didn’t like to do a Mammy and waltz on down the guilt-tripping road but sometimes needs must. ‘Pooh’s gotten very big so he has.’ She aimed her dart hoping to hit the bull’s eye.

  Jenny cleared her throat in what Roisin decided was a nervous manner. ‘I was just about to ask you how your mammy and him were getting on? It was ever so good of you to take him off our hands, like. The twins missed him for about five minutes and then forgot we ever had a puppy. Thank God.’

  ‘Well, I was glad to help because that’s what friends do and he’s settled in well with Mammy. Although, it’s looking like she’ll be leaving her worldly goods to him, he’s the apple of her eye, so he is. I have to say it was a shock to her, to all of us to realise he wasn’t going to be one of your tiny lap doggy poodles like I thought, though. Sure, I wouldn’t have offered to take him off your hands if it had been made clear.’ She waited and when she heard Jenny’s heavy sigh, she knew she’d won.

  She gave Aisling who was eavesdropping across the table the thumbs up as Jenny said, ‘Alright then, seeing as it’s you. I can sort you out at ten but, Roisin, don’t be late, I mean it. I’ve to get to the shops in the afternoon or I’ll have no food in for the Christmas dinner and shopping with the twins is harder than coordinating the Queen’s fecking daily planner.’

  Roisin smiled at the analogy. She was looking forward to seeing the gruesome twosome as their mammy called them. She slowed and indicated before turning into the driveway of 109. A tricycle lay abandoned in the front garden of the two-storey brick semi, and the flowerbeds either side of the front door could have done with a winter prune back, she noticed, getting out of her car and making her way up the front steps.

  She hardly recognised Jenny when she opened the door. Where was the glamorous girl who’d had a penchant for silver jewellery and very cool clothes, more often than not in black? She’d always said black showcased whatever colour she’d put through her hair that month. The woman in front of her, whose hair was a bleached crop, looked tired as she glanced down at the jammy hand print on her oversized sweat top. She was wearing leggings and fluffy slippers that reminded Roisin of a pair she recalled her nana living in during her later years. In her hand was a mascara wand which she waved liked a traffic baton ushering Roisin in. Once the door was shut, she was wrapped in a hello hug, although she didn’t squeeze back too tightly not wanting the jam to rub off on her. She knew wearing cream to visit her friend had been a bad idea but she’d wanted to go neutral after all that red yesterday.

  ‘You’re looking well on it, Jenny,’ she lied. She wanted a decent haircut after all and she’d her fingers crossed for a freebie. ‘Motherhood obviously agrees with you.’

  ‘Liar.’ She rustled up a wan smile. ‘And I can see why you were desperate for a trim. I’m a mess but if you watch Ophelia and Oscar for ten minutes, I could tidy myself up and then make you beautiful.’

  ‘Sounds like a good plan.’ Roisin remembered her friend saying she was heading out shopping. She could recall going to get the groceries being an outing when Noah was small, any chance to get out of the house was an outing. ‘I’ve nowhere I need to be, take your time. Now, where are they. They were babies last time I saw them.’

  FAMOUS, FECKING LAST words! Roisin thought, lying on the living room floor as a scarf was wound around her leg. She already had a series of plasters decorating any exposed bits of her face and body. Ophelia was bandaging her leg for her. Her little face, almost hidden by the cloud of gorgeous, golden curls, was a picture of seriousness in her dress-up nurse’s uniform. Oscar, her double apart from the short haircut, did an even more impressive version than the one she’d heard yesterday of a siren. What was Jenny doing, having a nice soak in the bath and reading a good book? Had she sneaked out to do her shopping?

  A good half hour after she’d disappeared faster than a piece of chocolate cake at a Slimmer’s World meeting, Jenny reappeared. It could have been a different woman. Roisin sat up and took stock of the transformation and the twins were rendered silent for all of ten seconds as they checked out this new version of their mammy. This was the Jenny she remembered. ‘You look gorgeous.’ She beamed.

  ‘I feel amazing. Thanks a million for watching them, Rosi. It was such a treat to put my face on without giving a blow by blow account of everything I was doing.’

  ‘It was no bother. We’ve had fun haven’t we, you two?’ Roisin said unpeeling the plaster from her eyebrow and hoping she didn’t take half of it with it.

  The twins nodded cherubically as their mammy flicked the television on for them and some eejits, dancing about in colours so bright they’d make your eyes bleed, filled the screen. She told them to be good while she gave Roisin a haircut and dragging a dining room chair behind her, beckoned for Roisin to follow her into the kitchen. ‘I can’t do a dry cut so I’ll give you a shampoo and condition over the sink,’ she said depositing the chair in the middle of the kitchen. The smell of fish hung faintly in the air; last night’s dinner Roisin guessed as Jenny gestured at the sink. The bottles to the side were salon products, Roisin thought, recognising the labels. It would make a nice change from her supermarket duo. She picked up the folded towel, also on the worktop
, and draped it around her shoulders before dutifully bending over and angling her head under the taps.

  ‘How’s the temperature?’ Jenny asked, running the water.

  Near scalding water trickled over Roisin’s scalp and she yelped, ‘Ouch, too hot.’

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘Jaysus, too cold.’

  ‘Sorry, the tap’s very temperamental. How’s this?’

  ‘Just right.’

  She sounded like Goldilocks, Roisin thought, wincing as shampoo was rubbed into her scalp. Jenny had lost her touch because it wasn’t a relaxing head massage she was after receiving and her back was killing her already from the stooping. There were a few moments of drama when shampoo got in her eye and she had to hold the towel to her eye to stem the stinging but aside from that she was smelling sweet and sitting in the chair ready to be pruned in no time.

  A lot had happened since the last time she’d been in Dublin and she chattered about her life as a newly single woman, learning to stand on her own two feet and her hopes for eventually running yoga classes, as Jenny snipped away.

  ‘I’d love to do yoga but there’s never any time.’

  ‘I could teach you a few basic moves. I managed to get Mammy doing some with me this morning.’ She shuddered at the memory of her mammy in her yoga pants attempting the triangle pose. ‘You could do them when the kids are napping or watching television.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘It really helped keep me sane when Noah was small.’

  ‘And how is the young fella?’

  ‘He’s grand. He’s after bringing his pet gerbil with him from London which didn’t go down well with Mammy at first but she seems to be warming to the little chap. He is rather sweet.’

  ‘I’m done with pets for the foreseeable future. Although we might stretch to a goldfish or something, you know, just so as they’ve got something to cart along to pet day when they start in the infants. Now shall I add some soft layers?’

  ‘Soft layers it is.’

  ‘So,’ Jenny’s voice took on an almost sly quality, ‘is this desperate need for a haircut down to a certain fella?’

  ‘I’ve only been separated a few months.’

  ‘Don’t come all holier than thou. It’s me, Roisin, I know you of old. What’s his name?’

  ‘Shay. And it’s only a drink we’re going for.’ She explained how they’d come to meet.

  ‘Do you think you’ll do the wild thing?’

  ‘No! Sure, I hardly know the fella. And it’s not a date or anything it’s just a...’ What was it?

  ‘Don’t move!’ Jenny chided. ‘It’s a date, and hardly knowing a fella never stopped you in the past.’

  ‘I was young and wild then.’

  ‘Tell me about it, and I’m only asking because I live vicariously through other people’s sex lives these days. Eoin and I were at it like rabbits when we first got married, we even did it on the kitchen worktop once.’

  Roisin’s eyes slid to the worktop and she decided that if, per chance, a cuppa and biscuit were offered after the haircut she’d decline.

  ‘The last time we got jiggy, Oscar waltzed in right in the middle of it and Eoin had to pretend he was doing press-ups. By the time he’d finished explaining why he was doing them over Mammy neither of us were in the mood anymore. It’s not funny!’ she protested as Roisin laughed. ‘Now with his mammy and daddy coming to stay there’ll be no show of him practising his press-ups, not while they’re in the room next door. He said it makes him feel peculiar knowing they’re under the same roof.’

  ‘Catholic guilt,’ Roisin said knowingly. They all had it.

  ‘It’s that alright. What are you going to wear?’

  Roisin shrugged, getting told off again for the sudden movement. ‘I haven’t a clue. Not that I have a lot of choice, just what I stuffed in my suitcase.’

  ‘So, you’ll try on everything you have with you, make a big mess, and then wear the first thing you tossed on.’

  ‘Probably,’ Roisin laughed.

  ‘Have you done all your Christmas shopping?’

  ‘I finished the last of it yesterday afternoon. Moira, Aisling and I tackled the shops. I was dead on my feet by the end of it.’ Roisin closed her eyes for a moment recalling the elbow room only of most of the stores they’d visited. Unlike when the sales were on though and it was every man for himself, people were good natured and smiley. She’d enjoyed the atmosphere as they’d made their way down Grafton Street, pausing to listen to a group of young children singing carols. Seeing the Euros piling up in the upside-down hat in front of them she’d been tempted to go and fetch Noah back from his nana’s and get him joining in on the Jingle Bells.

  ‘Yes, thank God for catalogues. I did most of mine months ago from the comfort of my sofa. I’ve only the food to sort out now.’

  ‘Aisling put her hand up to do our shop because with Quinn being in the restaurant business, he knows where all the best deals are to be found.’

  ‘Lucky you lot. Now then, we’re nearly done. Sit up straight.’ She came and stood in front of Roisin pulling two bits of hair down either side of her face and comparing them. ‘That’s going to feel a lot better. I haven’t taken much off just half an inch or so but it will get rid of those chewed up ends and the layers have gotten rid of all that bulk. Did you want a little bit taken off your fringe?’

  ‘Just a teensy bit, please, Jenny.’ She held up her thumb and index finger to demonstrate the quarter centimetre she wanted nipping off.

  Snip, snip, snippity snip, ‘Feck, Roisin, why did you jump!’

  Roisin’s eyes were bulbous with horror and Jenny who was looking horrified at what had just happened to Roisin’s fringe spun around. She let out a scream that made Oscar’s siren seem like a whispered sentiment. Standing in the kitchen doorway, not sure what all the fuss was about, was Ophelia. Her halo of curls, the curls Roisin had been admiring under half an hour ago were a memory. She looked like a little orphan girl whose head had been dealt with for the lice. ‘Oscar and me played hairdressers,’ she lisped.

  Chapter 16

  ‘I can’t go out, not like this,’ Roisin cried from the bathroom. ‘I’m not coming out.’

  ‘Rosi, sweetheart, it suits you. It shows off your pretty face,’ Maureen shouted through the door but despite the fact she was shouting she still had that slightly high-pitched tone that told Roisin she was fibbing. ‘Sure, it’s the shock of a change that’s all. Remember me with my braids? The way you all carried on? Well, that was just because you weren’t used to it. A fringe like yours is what we would have called the gamin look in my day. You know like your woman, Audrey Hepburn.’ Maureen paused waiting for a reply and when none was forthcoming, she urged, ‘Come on out now, your sisters have just arrived. They’ll sort you out. Aisling’s bought cake.’ She added. ‘It’s chocolate with a cream filling.’

  Roisin was not in the least bit comforted by Mammy bringing up the Bo Derek braids she’d sported during and post her Vietnam trip. It hadn’t been the change they’d all struggled with. It had been the fact that their mammy was getting about looking like an aging one-hit wonder movie star who belonged on a beach, and Howth harbour did not count. As for gamin she might as well have said gamey. She heard frantic whispering on the other side of the door as her sisters and Mammy compared notes. It seemed Mammy had brought out the big guns, insisting Moira and Aisling drop everything to come around and try and bribe Roisin from the bathroom with cake. Well, she was definitely not coming out now.

  Roisin stared in the mirror. She’d tried wetting the bangs and smoothing them straight to try and add length but like a tennis ball they bounced right on up again to sit smack back in the middle of her forehead. She looked, what did she look like? She bit her bottom lip as it came to her. She looked not quite right for want of a different turn of phrase. Bloody, Jenny! She’d had to keep snipping at it until it was even after she’d slipped with the scissors. As for the twins, they’d found the d
iscarded pair of nail scissors Oscar had used for his haircutting debut having pilfered them from the bathroom drawer, under the sofa. It had taken Roisin ages to calm Jenny down over Ophelia’s new look. ‘It’ll grow back in no time,’ she’d soothed. ‘And at least it’s winter and you can put a hat on her when you go out.’

  They’d had to swap roles once Roisin caught sight of her crowning glory with Jenny tossing her own words back at her. ‘But I’m meeting Shay tonight, I don’t have time to wait for it to fecking well grow back! And I don’t suit bloody hats,’ she’d wailed. Jenny had followed her to the front door apologising the whole way and wringing her hands over what Eoin would say when he got home and saw Ophelia.

  Roisin had driven home feeling sure every time she stopped at the lights that the person in the car next to hers was shaking their heads and thinking ‘Jaysus, would you look at the state of that, God love her.’ It was ridiculous but she was bordering on hysteria, and it wasn’t all down to the fringe she knew. The fringe had merely exacerbated the tension building over meeting Shay tonight. When they’d gone for coffee the last time she’d seen him it had felt relaxed, and natural, but going out for a dinner well, that fell into the formal bracket of a date didn’t it? She’d make an eejit of herself, she was sure of it. Well, one thing was certain she’d thought, bursting through the door of Mammy’s apartment, she’d fecking well look like one.